Whether lining a river bustling with rowing crews or sitting calmly at the edge of a lake, boathouses have a storied history and an inexplicable romance to match their unusual program. Designed for use as a training facility for elite rowers, a vacationer’s waterfront playground, shoreline retreat, or even as a historical preservation project, boathouses captivate the imagination as they transcend the limits of the land-form relationship on their site.
Leaving land creates a number of challenges and opportunities for an architect, particularly in creating a stable base for a building on the edge of dry land. As seen in the following collection of contemporary boathouse projects, waterfront structures can tower over the water on piles, float on a buoyant platform, or perch comfortably on the coast and connect to the water with an extended boat ramp. The relationship between a waterfront building and its corresponding body of water encompasses every aspect of a project’s architecture—affecting climate, humidity, noise, light, and particularly the panoramic views out across the water from upper floors and elevated balconies.
To celebrate a summer of cooling off by the water, here’s a collection of 10 newly-constructed or renovated boathouses (and one bonus resort complex) that take amphibious architecture to a new level.
Het Bosch / JagerJanssen architecten + Dreissen Architecten
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
WMS Boathouse at Clark Park / Studio Gang
Chicago, IL, USA
Community Rowing Boathouse / Anmahian Winton Architects
Boston, MA, USA
Michael Baker Boathouse / Associated Architects
Worcester, United Kingdom
Klostergarden Boathouse / Trodahl Arkitekter
Mosterøy, Rennesøy, Norway
Boathouse / Cibinel Architecture
Lake of the Woods, Canada
Muskoka Boathouse / Christopher Simmonds Architect
Muskoka Lakes, Canada
Modern Boathouse / Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Limited
Parry Sound District, ON, Canada
Boat’s House at Millstätter Lake / MHM architects
Seeboden, Austria
Sports Technification Centre For Rowing And Canoeing Orio / U.T.E. Atristain Begiristain
Orio, Basque Country, Spain
Boat Rooms on the Fuchun River / The Design Institute of Landscape and Architecture China Academy of Art
Mei Cheng Da Dao, Jiande Shi, Hangzhou Shi, Zhejiang Sheng, China